You mean to tell me merchants don't realize how powerless they are when it comes to control of their bank accounts or paypall accounts??! How can Bitcoin ever compete then if people don't even feel like there's room for improvement?

A lot of people just don't know there are better alternatives, familiary is comforting. For some it breeds contemp and you'll reach those, but you could miss out on a lot of others just by including hot phrases. Bitcoin can stand on it's own merits. No need to tear the banks down, they're destroying themselves.

Rule number one of your first email to someone in business (who you don't know) is that it can't be more than 4 or 5 sentences. This means, you should basically just say something like, "Hey are you guys planning to accept Bitcoin as a payment option soon? "

Then if they respond with the question "WTF is that?" then you can write a couple short paragraphs of what it is, and why they as a merchant might like it.

Then if there is a second response from them, it means they're clearly interested and you can provide some links, more comprehensive info.

Especially for your first mail, less is definitely more! Starting with an essay about Bitcoin's advantages, no matter how witty and thoughtful, will probably not get you very far.

You likely can increase adoption by explaining to them how they can do everything right and then still have their funds seized by Mt.Gox for totally undefined "suspicious activity" which is completely impossible for them to prevent.

Rule number one of your first email to someone in business (who you don't know) is that it can't be more than 4 or 5 sentences. This means, you should basically just say something like, "Hey are you guys planning to accept Bitcoin as a payment option soon? "

Then if they respond with the question "WTF is that?" then you can write a couple short paragraphs of what it is, and why they as a merchant might like it.

Then if there is a second response from them, it means they're clearly interested and you can provide some links, more comprehensive info.

Especially for your first mail, less is definitely more! Starting with an essay about Bitcoin's advantages, no matter how witty and thoughtful, will probably not get you very far.

This makes sense from the Merchants perspective who may be receiving 100's to 1000's of emails a day. With the "Less is More" approach you may increase your chances of the Merchant being receptive. It is better than where too much information may become classified as SPAM in the mind of the Merchant.Thanks

You likely can increase adoption by explaining to them how they can do everything right and then still have their funds seized by Mt.Gox for totally undefined "suspicious activity" which is completely impossible for them to prevent.

Are you just being a wise ass or are you serious? You don’t think we should be attempting to increase awareness because MtGox sucks?

Going along with my previous statement regarding fees, you could push Bit-Pay, which hasn't really had such issues and is business oriented. To avoid bringing new business converts too far outside their comfort zone by eliminating the fee completely, you could show them that there is a way to do it for a reduced fee, which in some cases may be substantially reduced (compare with credit cards for instance), but not gone.

Although I have not experienced Bit-Pay from a business owner's perspective, I'd bet that they would have less of a support backlog and noob agents problem compared to MtGox. MtGox's merchant solution is cheap, but a business owner wants to get answers right away if there is possibly a problem, and I don't know that I would want to rely on MtGox for that. In addition, MtGox's merchant solution was recently bolted on to the back of their exchange API, and Bit-Pay have been doing only a merchant solution since their inception.

My comment was more a warning. Bitcoin is 0.x for a reason. I don't want to discourage adoption but there are significant challenges and not all of them technical. A major business having coins frozen would be a PR disaster for Bitcoin it would undermine all the claims we make. The reality is not all businesses are ready for Bitcoin because Bitcoin isn't ready for all businesses. I think a slow increase in adoption in terms of users, merchants, software, etc is the best path.

In time I think any challenge can be resolved. It likely will require a lawsuit when certain exchange freezes the wrong account and a six or seven figure settlement but it will be resolved.

Sorry for the semi-derail. Just been a hard day with some wanting to force miners to include tx and exchanges up to the iodiocy of freezing accounts based on secret lists.

You likely can increase adoption by explaining to them how they can do everything right and then still have their funds seized by Mt.Gox for totally undefined "suspicious activity" which is completely impossible for them to prevent.

Are you just being a wise ass or are you serious? You don’t think we should be attempting to increase awareness because MtGox sucks?

Going along with my previous statement regarding fees, you could push Bit-Pay, which hasn't really had such issues and is business oriented. To avoid bringing new business converts too far outside their comfort zone by eliminating the fee completely, you could show them that there is a way to do it for a reduced fee, which in some cases may be substantially reduced (compare with credit cards for instance), but not gone.

Although I have not experienced Bit-Pay from a business owner's perspective, I'd bet that they would have less of a support backlog and noob agents problem compared to MtGox. MtGox's merchant solution is cheap, but a business owner wants to get answers right away if there is possibly a problem, and I don't know that I would want to rely on MtGox for that. In addition, MtGox's merchant solution was recently bolted on to the back of their exchange API, and Bit-Pay have been doing only a merchant solution since their inception.

+1

That last sentence, for me, sums it all up.

Merchant: So tell me, Mr. Gox, how you got into providing merchant solutions.Mt Gox: Funny story, but all it started when I was trading these Magic: The Gathering cards...

1. Urging people to accept Bitcoin to make their value rise sounds like a pump and dump scheme.2. The typical merchants and charities don’t do shit, noone would use Bitcoins with them instead of fiat. They also just cash out Bitcoins for Dollars, so that actually brings down the price.

Again, the only thing that really helps is to have applications which cannot exist without Bitcoin.